Lucy Popescu

★★★★★ Benedikt Erlingsson’s widely acclaimed, award-winning debut feature Of Horses and Men (2013) is as unique and clever as its subject – the Icelandic horse. As well as their distinctive faces, shaggy mane and tails, these small, sturdy beasts have two specific gaits – in between a trot and a gallop. Although pony-sized they are…

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★★★★☆ French director Philippe Claudel’s noirish new thriller Before the Winter Chill (2013), starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Daniel Auteuil, follows the fortunes of middle-aged couple who find their marriage threatened by a troubled young woman. Paul (Auteuil) is a successful surgeon, popular with the staff at his clinic and his patients. His wife Lucie…

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★★★★☆ Hossein Amini’s The Two Faces of January (2014), based on the Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name, is an atmospheric thriller set in Greece and Turkey during the early 1960s. Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) and his glamorous wife Collette, (Kirsten Dunst) are holidaying in Athens when they run into Rydal (Oscar Isaac), a…

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★★★★☆ Tracks (2013), The Painted Veil director John Curran’s award-winning outback drama starring Mia Wasikowska (Lawless, Stoker), tells the true story of Robyn Davidson, a young woman who in 1977 trekked across almost 2000 miles of treacherous Australian desert with only four temperamental camels and her loyal dog for company. Adapted from Davidson’s bestselling book,…

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★★★★☆ Marc Silver’s award-winning documentary Who is Dayani Cristal? (2013), co-produced by and starring Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, explores the identity and tragic fate of one economic migrant after he attempts to forge a life for himself in the United States. Every year, thousands of Mexicans, Central and South Americans illegally cross the Mexican-US…

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★★★★☆ The debut feature from Stephen Brown, The Sea (2013) is a compassionate rendering of John Banville’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel. After losing his wife Anna (Sinéad Cusack) to cancer, Max Morden (Ciarán Hinds) returns to the Irish seaside town where he spent summers as a child. He stays at a boarding house owned by…

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★★★★☆ Cédric Klapisch’s lively romantic comedy, starring Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou, is the final chapter in his ‘Spanish Apartment Trilogy’ which began with the titular The Spanish Apartment (2002). As the name suggests, Chinese Puzzle (2013) is a colourful mishmash of different characters’ stories, sub-plots and intersecting timelines. There’s also a clever meta-textual commentary…

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★★★★★ The Coen brothers are in fine form with Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), a brilliant portrait of a struggling folk singer (Oscar Isaac). It’s 1961 and Llewyn is trying to make a go of it as a solo artist after the death of his musical partner. He drags himself from bar to stage, cadging off…

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★★★☆☆ Kill Your Darlings (2013), director John Krokidas’ ambitious debut feature, is about the early years of the hedonistic group of American writers who became known as the Beat Generation, as well as the violent murder that nearly derailed their literary movement in its infancy. It’s autumn 1943 and the Second World War is raging,…

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★★★☆☆ Bruno Barreto’s handsome, English-language biopic Reaching for the Moon (2013) follows the passionate relationship between Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Elizabeth Bishop (The Lord of the Rings star Miranda Otto) and Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires). It’s 1951 and Elizabeth, suffering from writers’ block, is encouraged by fellow poet Robert Lowell (Treat Williams)…

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